1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to commerce using a consumer mobile device and wireless communication and, more particularly, to managing concurrent secure elements on the mobile device to coordinate with an application or “app” running on the mobile device and an appropriate communications protocol for conducting transactions using the mobile device.
2. Related Art
One issue with today's mobile device or consumer electronic devices is that most of the time, the devices can handle only one secure element (SE). A secure element may be briefly described as a system for storing private data—such as a digital identification (ID) of the payer, e.g., user of the mobile device—in such a way that it is very difficult to compromise. For example, a secure element of a device may be located in a Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC), a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card, Secure Data (SD) card or embedded Secure Element (eSE), any of which may be plugged into or otherwise connected with the mobile device. With smart phones, it is becoming more and more common to see two or more secure elements in a single device. Current rules—such as those promulgated by standardization bodies like GlobalPlatform—allow only one SE to be active at a time or require one SE to be dominant while the other SEs are slaves.
Embodiments of the present disclosure and their advantages are best understood by referring to the detailed description that follows. It should be appreciated that like reference numerals are used to identify like elements illustrated in one or more of the figures, in which the showings therein are for purposes of illustrating the embodiments and not for purposes of limiting them.